Chapter 10

"Should we wait for an audience?" Sheldon asked, his nice pretense slipping.

"Audience?" Leonard picked up on it immediately.

"Sure." Pris said and by the smile on her face, Leonard could tell that Sheldon didn't scare her. She snapped her head in Leonard's direction, her hair flying around her face and smiled her normal Pris smile. "Can I help with anything?"

"Uhm. I'm just going to make some punch. But you can stand with me."

Leonard walked towards the kitchen and Pris left Sheldon behind at the couch.

"Oh wow. What is this?" she referred to the snacks laid out on the kitchen island.

"It's for your birthday party." Leonard said matter-of-factly.

"Wow. You didn't have to do that." She grinned, though.

"Well, this is the first birthday thing I get to do for a sibling, so I really wanted to."

"Oh. Yeah. That's so sweet."

"Did you have birthday parties growing up?" Leonard asked, curious about how her mother was different from his.

"Yes. Birthdays were a huge thing in my house. And holidays. We celebrated everything."

"Yeah?" Leonard wanted to hear more.

"We usually had an average of three dinners at thanksgiving every year and Christmas we spent in front of the TV all day. Birthdays are very important. My mom held so many amazing parties for me that the cops were called once and another one we ended up trying to track down a lost Llama."

"What?" Leonard laughed.

"Crazy. So who's going to be here?" Pris asked excitedly.

"The usual. Raj, Howard…" Leonard started and then Pris took over.

"Amy, Bernadette and Penny?"

"Yup. You know you're husband could have stayed too." Leonard mixed a few juices.

"Yeah I know. He had a dinner thing." Pris grabbed a snack off the kitchen island.

"And you didn't go with him?" Leonard stopped what he was doing to stare at her for a little while. She blushed and stared down into a bowl of M&M's.

"I'm no fun." She stated and Sheldon made a noncommittal noise from the living room but they ignored him.

"What do you mean?" Leonard asked, as he quickly glanced at Sheldon and looked back at Pris.

"I'm a human lie detector." Pris reminded him.

"Oh, right." Leonard nodded, continuing with the drink.

"And business people don't like that I can call them out on all their lies. Embry can't make any business deals when I'm around."

"Right."

"What kind of music do you listen to?" Pris wondered over to the radio and scanned the disks. They were old and pre iTunes. She laid eyes on the iPod player and removed her phone from her back pocket. She searched for her tunes and connected it to the player.

"This is currently my favorite song." A metal song: Lateralus by Tool started playing.

"That's just noise." Sheldon complained.

"It's mathematics." Pris countered.

"Oh Please." Sheldon uttered.

"Shut up Sheldon." Pris sang and closed her eyes as she continued to listen to the song.

The door opened and Penny poked her head in.

"Hi," she searched for Pris and found her as she strolled back to the couch. "Ready for your first present?" Penny asked.

"Presents? You didn't have to get me presents." Pris stated.

"Not? It's the social convention." Sheldon countered.

"Did you get me something, Sheldon?" Pris asked him, genuinely curious.

"Perhaps I did, Perhaps not." Sheldon failed at keeping a poker face.

"Schrödinger's cat. We get it." Penny stated and looked at Pris again. "Ready?"

"Sure."

Penny pushed the door open wider and stepped in carrying something fluffy. Pris's jaw dropped when Penny placed the ball of fur on the floor. Pris bent down and called the puppy to her.

"Oh wow! Penny!?" Pris uttered as the puppy reached her. It was a mix breed between a Husky and a Pomeranian. "A Pomsky?" Pris actually had to fight back happy tears. She picked up the puppy and reached out to hug Penny.

"Oh. That one is from Leonard." Penny said as she remained close to the door.

"I asked Penny to get you something." Leonard was curious as to how Penny would know that the puppy would have this effect on his sister. But he was glad that she was grinning from ear to ear.

"A brilliant man knows how to use his recourses." Pris reached out and hugged Leonard.

"Where did you get that load of…" Sheldon started.

"Shut up Sheldon." Pris, Penny and Leonard said together.

After the excitement over the little ball of fur had dropped down a little, Penny stepped closer to the door again. "And this one is from me." Penny opened the door and dragged in a red painted metal horse that reached up to her thighs.

"Is that one of the posts from the park?" Leonard uttered. It resembled a line of posts that separated the sidewalk from the grass. They were cemented into the sidewalk and each painted different colors like the jungle gym.

"What did you do?" Pris asked with another wide grin on her face.

"Oh no, I just picked it up. This morning when I went for my run, I noticed that it had been knocked down last night. When Leonard said you were coming over, I just went and got it."

"This is amazing." Pris hugged Penny. "Thank you."

"You stole public property?" Sheldon asked but Penny just glanced at him.

"Penny, how did you know Pris would want this?" Leonard asked.

"Well, the other day when I went for my run, I sort of ran into Pris, she was trying to take the post by brute force and almost got arrested." Penny giggled. "I saw her confrontation with the cop and it was insanely crazy…"

"So Penny pretended that she had lost me – her crazy sister – and promised the officer that I won't be wondering around the park anymore." Pris finished the story. "I wanted it for one of my art pieces. I would have paid for it."

"And we had coffee later and she told me about the dog she wanted."

"Coffee?" Leonard felt a pang of jealousy.

"Are you jealous?" Pris asked. "That's so cute." She reached out and hugged him again. "You are by far the best sibling I could have asked for."